About a year ago I stumbled upon LinkedIn. I thought it was an interesting resource and decided to sign up. At first, I didn’t think it was all that great. That is, until I had about 50 connections.
You see, LinkedIn can serve simply as a business curiosity or become a powerful way to maintain connections with the people you know, connect people you think might like to meet one another or connect you to people that can help you in some way.
Now that I’m over 150 connections (mind you, I know every single connection I have), it’s been interesting to see who others know and find people that are interested in or doing the things I’m contemplating or currently working on. Best of all, it’s a great ice breaker.
Lots of people choose to be open networkers (LIONs as LinkedIn users call it). I can see positives and negatives to this approach. On the positive side, you can meet A LOT of people you wouldn’t otherwise connect with. On the negative side, it doesn’t accurately represent your true network and you are essentially vouching for strangers.
If you haven’t given it a try, I strongly suggest you do. It never hurts to grow your network and you never know who you might meet.
Let me know if you’ve had a positive experience with LinkedIn, I’d love to hear your story.
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